Computer's Trends

There comes a time in a person’s life where no matter how much you fight it time takes its toll and we begin to slow down in how we perform our daily activities. However, in order to extend our youthful glow and energy levels it is important to eat right, exercise, and keep a positive outlook on life.

Now you may ask what has any of that got to do with “Secrets To A Healthy Computer?”

Well, in a way we’re all just like a computer. If you neglect to take care of yourself you soon will cease to function properly and the many tasks that once were easy to do now take twice as long to accomplish and often require you to rest or “reboot” after a malfunction.

I can’t tell you what foods to eat or what exercises to perform because I am not a nutritionist. Although, with my experiences in the personal computer field I can share with you some tips of how to keep that rectangle box of circuitry that sits within sights range functioning at maximum performance as long as time will allow.

Some important steps to follow are….

*Make certain that your computer is located in a well-ventilated area and that all air vents are unobstructed to prevent overheating and premature failure to any internal components.

*Clean out the dust build-up at least every 6 months from the inside of the computer case including case vents, power supply vents, and all visible circuitry with a few cans of compressed air that can be purchased from any major computer store or electronics outlet. This will help reduce the chances of over-heating and circuitry damage.

Before cleaning just be certain to always unplug the computer from the wall outlet and never physically contact the circuitry inside the computer case to prevent damage.

*Be prepared for an unsuspected failure by always making backups of any important data that you do not and can not afford to lose.

I personally keep updated backups of my website and even store the disks at a remote location away from my every day use computers just in case a disaster were to occur and my main computers were destroyed resulting in the need for those lost files.

*Purchase and install a well known anti-virus program that can be regularly updated with the latest virus definitions and ran during boot-up to help protect your computer from being the victim of an unwanted infestation.

*Every few months or so run your computer’s “Scandisk” program followed by the “Defragmenter” program to maximize the efficiency of your hard drive.

If you are not certain of how to use these utilities and being that the steps to execute these programs varies slightly from one operating system to the other it would be easiest to simply use the “Help” option that can be found by clicking on the START button found on your computers desktop.

The START menu will open up a drop-down-box that should display the “Help” option. By going here you can enter the keywords that deal with the answers to the subject you are searching for.

*Run your computers “Disk Cleanup” utility every other week or so. If set the “Disk Cleanup” utility will automatically empty the recycling bin and recover some wasted disk space by removing the internet temporary files that seem to always accumulate.

Again, use the “Help” option if you are uncertain of how to perform this task.

*Never smoke near a computer because the cooling fans will pull the smoke into the case where it can coat the inside parts of the computer with a residue which in turn can damage sensitive components.

*Place the computer case in an area where it will not be accidentally kicked or bumped to prevent the loosening of cables and damage to internal parts.

*Invest in a high quality surge protector to provide your computer and monitor against voltage spikes or “surges” that can dramatically shorten the life of your system. Just like most items in a store, “You get what you pay for”. So don’t skimp out on this important device!

Its also not a bad idea to invest in a surge protector that includes what is called a “Data Line Protector” which allows you to connect your telephone lines to and serves the same purpose for the telephone line to your modem just like the surge protector does for the electrical household current lines.

*Finally, if you plan on being away from home for more that a few days at a time or if there is a thunderstorm brewing in your area it is a very wise decision to always unplug ALL electrical lines and modem telephone lines from your system. Even with a surge protector installed it is possible that such a large voltage spike such as one caused by a lightening strike could prove fatal to any computer system.
Articles Source By Articles Base

Computer users frequently happen upon sites with malicious intentions and ensnaring links, and most have no idea until symptoms of existing malware occur. One day, such a user might open their internet browser only to be plagued by a continuous and periodic stream of pop-up ads, and of course, a slowness in performance, all of which can be extremely frustrating. This article discusses methods useful to get rid of malware, a task unknown to many of the less experienced and more naive computer users.

Malware can arrive at one's computer through various means, including clicking untrustworthy links, streaming videos and other material, clicking the flashy side ads and games that appear frequently, and other such methods, most of which are all caused by the computer user's actions. When the host computer is infected, the user may see symptoms immediately following the infection, or sometimes many weeks after. These symptoms include frequent pop-ups when connected to the internet, poor computer performance in the form of slow start up and shut down as well as slow loading of websites, and of course computer crashes.

To get rid of malware, the problem must first be assessed, determining what manner of infection is causing the undesired computer symptoms. One must distinguish whether or not a computer problem is a result of a more serious virus or a simple case of adware. All important data should first be backed up while the user is able, as computer crashes might end up destroying valuable information saved. The first step should always involve running a virus scanner, if available. If one is not available on a computer, it should be procured for current and future use. Examples are McAfee Antivirus, Norton, or even free services such as Symatec. This scanning process can potentially detect and remove the malware, thus completely solving the problem. Having an active antivirus program (usually not free) such as the aforementioned McAfee and Norton can easily prevent future infections, as they constantly run and even provide site advisers to notify users when they are entering sites known to cause problems.

Another possible solution is to simply download spyware detection programs such as spybot or those available on Lava Soft's website (such as Ad-Aware). These programs are especially useful for getting rid of nasty ads derived from internet cookies.

Another brute force method, sometimes used by more dedicated and experienced computer users, is to hunt for undesired processes in the computer's task manager, which normally requires looking up the details of every process appearing there.

To conclude, computer users have many means to remove malware such as installing virus scanners, using free scanning services online, installing spyware detection, and using the computer task manager. All of these methods are known to both remove and prevent malware, a problem that occurs with many of the less wary computer users.
Articles Source By Articles Base

The first computers were people! That is, electronic computers (and the earlier mechanical computers) were given this name because they performed the work that had previously been assigned to people. "Computer" was originally a job title: it was used to describe those human beings (predominantly women) whose job it was to perform the repetitive calculations required to compute such things as navigational tables, tide charts, and planetary positions for astronomical almanacs. Imagine you had a job where hour after hour, day after day, you were to do nothing but compute multiplications. Boredom would quickly set in, leading to carelessness, leading to mistakes. And even on your best days you wouldn't be producing answers very fast. Therefore, inventors have been searching for hundreds of years for a way to mechanize

The abacus was an early aid for mathematical computations. Its only value is that it aids the memory of the human performing the calculation. A skilled abacus operator can work on addition and subtraction problems at the speed of a person equipped with a hand calculator (multiplication and division are slower). The abacus is often wrongly attributed to China. In fact, the oldest surviving abacus was used in 300 B.C. by the Babylonians. The abacus is still in use today, principally in the far east. A modern abacus consists of rings that slide over rods, but the older one pictured below dates from the time when pebbles were used for counting (the word "calculus" comes from the Latin word for pebble).

In 1617 an eccentric (some say mad) Scotsman named John Napier invented logarithms, which are a technology that allows multiplication to be performed via addition. The magic ingredient is the logarithm of each operand, which was originally obtained from a printed table. But Napier also invented an alternative to tables, where the logarithm values were carved on ivory sticks which are now called Napier's Bones.

Napier's invention led directly to the slide rule, first built in England in 1632 and still in use in the 1960's by the NASA engineers of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs which landed men on the moon. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) made drawings of gear-driven calculating machines but apparently never built any.

The first gear-driven calculating machine to actually be built was probably the calculating clock, so named by its inventor, the German professor Wilhelm Schickard in 1623. This device got little publicity because Schickard died soon afterward in the bubonic plague.

In 1642 Blaise Pascal, at age 19, invented the Pascaline as an aid for his father who was a tax collector. Pascal built 50 of this gear-driven one-function calculator (it could only add) but couldn't sell many because of their exorbitant cost and because they really weren't that accurate (at that time it was not possible to fabricate gears with the required precision). Up until the present age when car dashboards went digital, the odometer portion of a car's speedometer used the very same mechanism as the Pascaline to increment the next wheel after each full revolution of the prior wheel. Pascal was a child prodigy. At the age of 12, he was discovered doing his version of Euclid's thirty-second proposition on the kitchen floor. Pascal went on to invent probability theory, the hydraulic press, and the syringe. Shown below is an 8 digit version of the Pascaline, and two views of a 6 digit version.

Source Articles By John Kopplin